About

Joachim Ozone is a doctoral student in the Peace Studies and Theology PhD program. He comes to the program stirred by his academic and personal experiences as a Catholic priest in Nigeria pastoring, teaching theology, working with commissions mediating violent conflicts, and accompanying families and persons struggling through the wounds of violence.

Joachim earned Bachelor’s in philosophy and Theology from the Pontifical Urban University, Rome. He also holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from the University of Notre Dame, with a concentration in Systematic Theology, and minors in Peace Studies, Digital Cultures, and Gender Studies.

His research interests live at the intersection of ritual, memory, identity, healing, and reconciliation, especially within contexts of mass violence. Using ethnography and portraiture, ritual studies and decolonial theories as theoretical frameworks, Joachim is asking how bodies and communities are socialized in and out of hatred and violence. He is researching the possibilities of digitally mediated Christian rituals in unlearning hatred, disrupting structures of human disposability, and inscribing a culture of life that respects the dignity of every human being.

Joachim is a Kellogg Doctoral Affiliate and a Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellow.

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Church Life Africa Conference 2023
Feature

Kellogg PhD Affiliates Develop Program of Catholic Leadership and Service in Africa

Nov 3, 2023

“We have heard the long-expressed hope – spoken with great passion by popes, bishops, and other Church leaders, especially in the West – that the future of the Catholic Church is in Africa,” said Rev. Kenneth Amadi, a Kellogg doctoral student affiliate. “And so we started thinking about what we could do today to secure that future.” Brainstorming with fellow Kellogg doctoral student affiliates Revs. William Orbih and Joachim Ozonze, who, like Amadi, are Nigerian priests and PhD students in theology at the University of Notre Dame, the trio came to found Church Life Africa (CLA), a strategic initiative that takes this hope seriously and calls for an intentional investment in its promise.